1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to suspect apprehension. Specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods for remotely disabling and/or tracking vehicles employed by fleeing suspects or other persons of interest.
2. Description of the Related Art
Systems for facilitating suspect apprehension are employed in various applications including law enforcement and military operations. Such applications demand efficient mechanisms to facilitate apprehending suspects without undue danger to bystanders, pursuers, or the suspect(s).
Systems for facilitating suspect apprehension are particularly important during high-speed chases, where fleeing suspects create an extreme safety hazard. Conventionally, pursuing agents, such as law enforcement officers, simply chase the suspect via one or more police vehicles, attempting to corner the suspect or force the suspect to run out of gas. Unfortunately, these methods are undesirably dangerous. Accordingly, more local governments are opting to outlaw high-speed chases and instead, let the suspects escape.
To reduce the duration of high-speed chases and thereby reduce accompanying risks, road spikes are sometimes employed. However, pursuers must either guess where the suspect will flee and then place spikes accordingly, or they must divert the suspect to the desired road equipped with the spikes. Unfortunately, suspect movement is often unpredictable, and innocent persons may be killed before the fleeing suspect reaches the road spikes. Furthermore, even after hitting road spikes, suspects often continue the chase with flat tires, which may increase danger to innocents, since vehicles becomes less controllable without tires.
To reduce pressure on pursuing agents to closely trail fleeing suspects, systems for tracking the suspects' locations may be employed. Such systems, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,246,323, entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TRACKING A VEHICLE, employ a transmitter embedded in a carrier that sticks on the vehicle when launched at the vehicle. The transmitter broadcasts a signal that enables pursuing agents to track the fleeing vehicle. However, law enforcement agents relying on these systems may be less likely to maintain visual contact with the suspects. Consequently, suspects may more readily escape by parking their vehicles and fleeing. This is particularly true in urban environments, where a fleeing suspect can blend with a crowd and where high-speed chases are more dangerous. This is especially problematic when the fleeing suspect is wanted for a serious crime.
Furthermore, use of such tagging trackers may not end the chase. If the suspect is a murder or other dangerous criminal that must be apprehended, pursuing agents may still attempt to maintain visual contact with the fleeing suspect. Consequently, the pursuits may remain undesirably dangerous despite the use of the trackers.
Alternatively, systems for remotely controlling vehicles, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,411,887, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REMOTELY CONTROLLING MOTOR VEHICLES, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,470,260, of the same title, may sometimes be employed. These systems include a device for sending control signals to control modules contained in the pursued vehicle. Unfortunately, pursued vehicles rarely have such control modules installed, and a clever suspect could conceivably disable such modules before or during the chase.
The art is crowded with systems that attempt to disable fleeing vehicles. One such system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,503,059, entitled VEHICLE DISABLING DEVICE AND METHOD. Unfortunately, such systems often require equipment, such as remote-controlled vehicle-disabling devices, which often do not exist on fleeing suspect vehicles. Accordingly, these devices are not widely used by law enforcement.
Hence, a long-felt unsolved need remains for an efficient system and method for facilitating apprehending persons fleeing by vehicle while minimizing danger to innocent bystanders and maximizing chances that the suspects are caught.